Since then we have made piscatorial advance, and doubtless shall make more. If we have not finally settled the question as to the acclimatisation of Salmo ferox in Tasmania, we have the best of all evidences of the existence of trout of exceptional size in Australian waters. Fly-fishing is still in its infancy, though the thymallus of the Yarra Falls rises eagerly, and gives good sport. Trout and herring furnish many an hour's enjoyment to the disciple of Izaak Walton in Tasmania. Huge lake-trout are to be found in the erstwhile eel-tenanted deeps of New Zealand. A salmo-appearing fish, weight 27 lbs., was killed in Tasmania in 1893.
In time—only give us time—and rest assured, my Australian brethren and English kinsfolk, that we shall have such sport in the South Land generally as shall do no discredit to our race—the best all-round sportsmen in the world. And so, fully aware that this is a bald and incomplete sketch of the rise and progress of sport in Australia, but promising to do better (if spared) at the next Centennial, and wishing us all good fun and fortune at this, one Australian hunter's horn must cease 'blowing' and sound the recall.
OLD STOCK-RIDERS
So poor old 'Flash Jack' is dead, says the Port Fairy Gazette, drowned in a creek—a stock-rider's not unfitting end. We remember him, young, debonair, tall, sinewy and active, with longish, curling brown locks of which he was rather proud, as also of the cabbage-tree hat of the period. But every one seems to be old nowadays except a crowd of juniors so painfully young that one wonders they are permitted to take life seriously. His sobriquet was acquired more through the ebullitions of a harmless vanity than from any of the offensive qualities which the well-worn colonial adjective is wont to imply. There was a certain amount of 'blow' about Jack, doubtless, but never in undue proportion to his attainments, which, as a stock-rider, horse-breaker, and mailman, were admitted to be creditable. His introduction to the Port Fairy district was through the Messrs. Carmichael, while before taking service with them he had reached Melbourne from England in the Eagle, Captain Buckley—both ship and commander favourably known in the early days.
A rumour prevailed that Jack was the scion of a good family; had been sent to sea as a midshipman, possibly to cure the malady of 'wildness,' for which a voyage to or residence in Australia is (erroneously) held to be a specific. It did not answer in Jack's case, for he quitted his ship, 'taking to the bush' (in a restricted sense), and never afterwards abandoning it. Uncommunicative about such matters generally, he threw out hints from time to time that he was not in the position for which his early associations had prepared him.
'My name's not Crickmere, Mas'r Rolf,' he said to me once, as we were riding through the Eumeralla marshes. (He always adopted the fiction that he was an old retainer of our family.) 'Far from it.' But after this dark saying he relapsed into his usual reserve on the subject and enlightened me no further. One trait of character which was in keeping with his presumed social past he was well known to possess.
'You seem mighty independent, my man,' said an employer to him on one occasion.
'Yes,' replied Jack proudly, 'and I can uphold it.'
He was in my service before and after 'the gold' as stock-rider, horse-breaker, and road-hand, both at Port Fairy and Lake Boga. Not the man to save his wages; unlike many of his contemporaries, who are now men of substance, Jack varied but little in his non-possession of the world's goods. But there were many homesteads in his old district where he was always sure of a welcome, a glass of grog, and a week's lodgings, so that when out of employment he was never in any great straits.
With one influential class of the community he was especially acceptable, and a favourite to the last. He had a natural 'Hans the boatman' faculty for amusing children, whom he delighted by making miniature stockwhips and other bush requisites, while they never tired of listening to his wondrous tales of flood and field.